Shorter workweek can save funds
In response to your article "Cut the five-day workweek to four" (Forum, Feb. 9):
A fellow classmate, Jourdan Cohen '11, and I came up with this proposal last year for the CARS committee and got feedback from some faculty.
The main criticism was that Brandeis already has a dearth of both classroom space and offices, so taking out a day would only exacerbate the problem.
Also, I was told that it would be operationally and financially inefficient to have the school running fewer days, though it's difficult to see that from purely the perspective of changes in the levels of energy consumption.
At the very least, it would be interesting to see some data from the registrar regarding the concentration of students in class during any given day and any given time.
Using this data, the registrar could nudge students into taking a more even spread of time blocks by putting important core courses for majors in less trafficked time blocks.
This, in turn, would give the registrar more leeway in assigning classroom space and create greater overall efficiency for the University.
-Michael Laderman '11Changes to SunDeis are beneficial
In response to your article "Students criticize plans for revamped SunDeis" (Arts, Feb. 9):
I understand and applaud Illona Yuhaev's '11 commitment to student involvement in the SunDeis festival, and I share her position that students must be able to have a say in how the festival will run.
However I don't think the festival has to be completely student run or bust-it's still possible for students to have a voice even if the film department is involved.
It would be nice if the entire thing was by students for students the way it was originally intended.
But if the student body cannot give SunDeis a functional budget then we must look to other sources of funding, and if that's the Film, Television and Interactive Media department, so be it-after all, the point of the festival is first and foremost to give student filmmakers a chance to exhibit their work.
I attended SunDeis last year and was very disappointed at the low turnout.
Perhaps with the Film department's resources and publicity we will be able to attract more submissions and improve student turnout.
After all, films are worthless if they're not seen.
-Daniel Liebman '12